Category Archives: Public Speaking

Tailoring Your Message To Fit The Audience

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Tailoring your message to fit the interests of the audience took on new meaning when singing sensation Taylor Swift performed in Tampa recently.

School superintendent Addison Davis “Taylor-ed” his message to his students : no skipping school because they were up too late attending a Taylor Swift concert on a school night.

The empathetic leader realized his preaching would have fallen on deaf ears. So he adapted. He couched his message in Taylor Swift song titles his audience not only knew but appreciated.

In an e-mail to all students, Mr. Davis first sought to gain the favor of his audience to at least hear him out:

“There’s a DELICATE situation we must discuss. Are you READY FOR IT?

“THIS IS ME TRYING to be the best Superintendent I can be without creating any BAD BLOOD between myself and our amazing students.”

Then Mr. Davis launches his teaching point. He is careful to compliment Taylor Swift as a performer and acknowledge the significance of her concert while still delivering his key message: don’t skip school.

Don’t Skip School

“Students YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN. Under no circumstances will Friday be an excused absence because you were having an ENCHANTED evening under the STARLIGHT.“

Then Mr. Davis demonstrates his emotional intelligence and self-awareness to step away from his bully pulpit with a softening tone to keep his audience from shutting him out. He acknowledges what those students might be thinking of this authority figure raining on their parade to a Taylor Swift concert.

“I understand I am the ANTI-HERO here, and CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT but YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN KID if you think being a Swiftie is a good excuse for missing important instruction. You know ALL TOO WELL you SHOULD’VE SAID NO to attending a Thursday night concert. Especially one from an artist who is known for putting on a 3-hour amazing show.”

Then Mr. Davis climbs up on his bully pulpit and gives his audience a reality check:

It could be a CRUEL SUMMER if you prioritize being a Swiftie over being in class. YOU BELONG WITH ME, ME! in school. Please don’t make me see RED with your absence.”

“You may think you’re OUT OF THE WOODS since it is the fourth quarter, but make no mistake, if you miss an important lesson, you will not be able to SHAKE IT OFF. Your report card could be TREACHEROUS because you refused to STAY, STAY, STAY in class. I know, I know YOU’RE NOT SORRY for attending such a GORGEOUS concert but I promise you, this is not a HOAX.

To develop your skill in tailoring your message to fit the interests and concerns of the audience get your copy of SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility & Featuring 52 more Leadership Mints. The third book in the Leadership Mints Series develops your ability to gain greater shared understanding and collaborative decision making through credible two-way communications especially in adversarial situations.

Readers develop their credibility, capability and memorability to gain greater understanding and speak with greater civility.

Get Your Copy of SPEAKING Like a Leader

Click Here

WHAT IS A LEADERSHIP MINT?

Consumed like a breath mint — quick and on-the-go — a Leadership Mint is a bite-sized idea that energizes leadership behaviors and personalizes leadership principles so they are more easily remembered, more readily acted upon and more fully applied.

Pause For the Cause In a Heated Argument

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You are an elected official, a representative in your state legislature. During a debate on a critical issue, your colleague scolds you in an angry tone for seeking attention and not following the rules,

How would you respond to that kind of scathing ad hominem attack in a public forum that questions your integrity and character?

Chances are you would impulsively fight fire with fire. You’d feel obligated to defend your integrity and your character with emotionally-tinged vocal tirade to set the record straight.

Yet Justin J. Pearson (D- Memphis), a state representative in the Tennessee state legislature, did the exact opposite. He responded with a pregnant pause: Six seconds of silence while the words of his opponent still seemed to sizzle with a flair of acrimony in the air,

Then without malice in his voice or anger in his face, Rep. Pearson calmly posed a question in a soft voice to the general audience rather than a respond directly to his colleague.

With poise and professionalism, he posed the question slowly and methodically in stark contrast to the blistering diatribe that assaulted his ears just moments before.

“How many/ of you/ would want/ to be/ spoken to that way?

And then he repeated the question even more thoughtfully and softly. How many/ of you/ would want/ to be/ spoken to that way? Then he clarified the issue at hand: a discussion on gun control legislation rather that a personal attack berating the colleague for seeking attention and breaking the rules of the legislature. Rep. Pearson then explored the genesis of the ad hominem attack.

“The reason I believe the sponsor of this legislation is comfortable is because there is a decorum that allows it, that allows you to belittle people. We didn’t belittle anyone.”

Rep. Pearson proved that periodic pauses pack a punch. Six second pauses feel a lot longer than they really are, but listeners use that time to more fully digest the food for thought you just served to them.

The pregnant pause fills the listeners with anticipation that makes your message even more provocative, even more commanding and even more intriguing. 

Silence is a requisite of speaking just as exhaling is a requisite of breathing.

Without the pause, the sounds of words become only a cacophony of noise. Without exhaling, you cannot inhale. No wonder Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed: “Talking is like playing the harp. There is as much laying the hands on the strings to stop the vibrations as in twanging them to make the music.”

With a pregnant pause you as the speaker tune in more directly into your thoughts, into your emotions and into your ideas. The ensuing silence seems paradoxically to amplify your thoughts so fully that your speech seemingly oozes out of your being with greater meaning and enhanced memorability.

To develop your skill in conducting a pregnant pause to cool a heated debate and gain more control over persuading others of your point of view, get your copy of SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility & Featuring 52 more Leadership Mints.

The third book in the Leadership Mints Series develops your ability to gain greater shared understanding and collaborative decision making through credible two-way communications especially in adversarial situations.

Readers develop their credibility, capability and memorability to gain greater understanding and speak with greater civility.

Get Your Copy of SPEAKING Like a Leader

Click Here

WHAT IS A LEADERSHIP MINT?

Consumed like a breath mint — quick and on-the-go — a Leadership Mint is a bite-sized idea that energizes leadership behaviors and personalizes leadership principles so they are more easily remembered, more readily acted upon and more fully applied.

Persuading vs. Convincing: Playing To Your Strengths

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Patrick Henry’s stirring call to action — “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech on March 23, 1775 still resonates with history buffs 248 years later.

Imagine if you had a seat in St. John’s Church in Richmond, VA on that Thursday afternoon and you personally experienced that goose-bump, misty-eyed sensation as an impassioned Patrick Henry concluded his speech like a conductor with a dramatic crescendo. And imagine the resolute sense of commitment surging through the veins of his audience during the second Virginia Convention, a surging sense of purpose and principal that prefaced the American Revolution and spawned the birth of the United States of America 16 months later on July 4, 1776.

Fortunately, historians like Joseph J. Ellis have attempted to capture the dynamic scene. Writing in his book American Creation, Mr. Ellis describes Patrick Henry as tall and animated with the “appearance of an actor on stage and an evangelical minister at the pulpit.” His Adonis like 6-feet 2-inch body imbued his words with an inspirational punch.

But what if you are NOT that flamboyant, NOT that energetic, NOT that inspirational, can you still earn the confidence of others in your ideas?

What if you are the diametrically opposite of the tall and affable and loquacious Patrick Henry.

What if you are short, reserved and taciturn by nature. What if you are a 5-foot -4 inches tall -not 6 feet 2?

What if your voice is so barely audible that the stenographer asks you to speak up. And what if you routinely hold a hat in one hand as you are speaking and sabotage your ability to gesture and energize the audience with your body language?

Meet James Madison who would become the Father of the Constitution and the fourth president of the United States. He stood 5-feet-4. His voice was barley audible. His personality more reserved. His lifestyle so very different. In fact, Mr. Madison married for the first and only time at 43 not at 18 like Mr. Henry. And Mr. Madison never had children of his own. Meanwhile Mr. Henry fathered 17 children in two marriages.

And now you are debating the more flamboyant Patrick Henry on federalist vs. state’s rights.

Could you persuade with the zeal of a Patrick Henry who would become the Commonwealth of Virginia’s first governor?

Or rather would you play to your strength and convince others with your well-reasoned, evidence-based argument?

Play To Your Strengths

What if you leveraged your hat as a filing cabinet of sorts for your notes that you regularly consulted in real time to rebut point by point as Madison did “without flourish or affectation”,” writes historian Ellis, “and in a sense more impressive because of their austerity.”

In speaking like a leader, you play to your strengths. Some persuade. Others convince. Indeed, John Marshall,the Chief Justice of the United States, summed up the diversity of leaders, saying : “Mr. Henry had without doubt the greatest power to persuade while Mr. Madison had the greatest power to convince.”

For more tips and techniques to develop your strengths in persuading or convincing, have a mint — a leadership mint and refresh your feeling for leading. Savor 64 individually wrapped Leadership Mints for you in SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility, a Leadership Mints Series Book.

SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility — the third book in the Leadership Mints Series — develops your ability to gain greater shared understanding and collaborative decision-making through credible two-way communications especially in adversarial situations. The 298-page book is comprised of 52 Leadership Mints -short stories that leadership principles that like a candy mint are quickly savored and immediately rejuvenating to refresh your feeling for leading.

Get Your Copy of Speaking Like a Leader

Click Here

WHAT IS
A LEADERSHIP MINT?

Consumed like a breath mint — quick and on-the-go- a Leadership Mint is a bite-sized idea, thought or story illustrating a key leadership principle to refresh your feeling for leading and reinvigorate your capability to reinforce your continuous performance improvement with initiatives that are readily remembered, applied and acted on. Like its candy counterpart, a Leadership Mint is easily accessed, quickly savored (average reading time 5 minutes or less) and immediately rejuvenating,

Leadership Mints Series Sampler: AIRING YOUR MESSAGE

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Remember the first time you got the urge to play your air guitar?

That’s body language — a genuine outer expression of an inner impression.

And it comes from the heart and soul based on authentic feelings.

Guitarists in particular and music fans in general note that playing the air guitar first took root in America in 1969 when authentic feelings flowed on stage at Woodstock.

At least that’s how Smithsonian magazine’s April White captures the vibrations and rhythm of the first air guitar performance on a public stage.

“Joe Cocker could feel the music channeling through his body as he began his final number on the Woodstock stage.

“With one hand the singer mimed the song’s opening piano notes, and then as the drums kicked in, Cocker lifted his left arm and swung his right in front of his body in perfect time with the dramatic first chords of his hit:

With a Little Help From My Friends. There in front of hundreds of thousands Joe Cocker was playing the air guitar.”

Authentic gestures — like Joe Cocker ‘s impressive and expressive 51-second air-guitar playing — project a sense of integrity and sincerity.

Authenticity like that earns trust and credibility from an even more engaged audience.

And authenticity like that stirs greater memorability and mobility from an even more motivated audience to act on your message.

Indeed your body speaks long before you do.

To help you develop even more authentic body language in general and presentation skills in particular, consider purchasing a copy of SPEAKING Like a Leader, a 298-page book now available on Amazon.com.

SPEAKING Like a Leader is part of the Leadership Mints Series that also includes a book on creativity —THINKING Like a Leader , a 284-page book filled with 77 Leadership Mints and a 300-page book on empathy filled with 77 more Leadership Mints-LOVING Like a Leader.

All three books in The Leadership Mints Series are designed for busy leaders seeking to refresh their feeling for leading in 5-minutes or less — the average reading of a Leadership Mint.

What ‘s a Leadership Mint?

Consumed like a breath mint — quick and on-the-go — a Leadership Mint is a short story that energizes leadership behaviors and personalizes leadership principles so they are more easily remembered, more readily acted upon and more fully applied.

 

Are You Speaking Like a Leader? New Book Celebrates Civility

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SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility & Featuring 52 More Leadership Mints by Peter Jeff, is now available on Amazon.com, $15 paperback, $8 digital.

  1. The title page of the 298-page book states emphatically: “This book is R Rated: R for Respect. How leaders gain, retain, and sustain respect from distracted audiences in general and disengaged employees in particular. And in the process how speaker/leaders earn greater credibility for themselves and increased buy-in for their message. With civility.”

In addition to a speech writing template and 12 ways to spice up the memorability of your podium performance, the book is filled with examples on earning credibility rooted in civility from audiences who are aggrieved and adversarial.

To purchase on Amazon.com SPEAKING Like a Leader.

There are specific bonus chapters on reprimanding an employee, on cooling off an irate customer, on contending with an aggressive news media, on overcoming apathetic meeting participants and on dueling effectively with a skeptical job interviewer.

SPEAKING Like a Leader is also the only public speaking book on the market that features a 18-page section on how to SEASON your sense of humor to foster greater civility for your presentation style and greater credibility for gaining understanding and acceptance of your message.

As the third book in The Leadership Mints Series, SPEAKING Like a Leader builds on leading with empathy in LOVING Like a Leader published in 2017 and on clarity in decision-making in THINKING Like a Leader, published in 2016.

Like the other books in The Leadership Mints Series, SPEAKING Like a Leader offers a grab ‘n go, dip-in-anywhere 5-minute reading experience that refreshes a leader’s feeling for leading with Leadership Mints — short stories that personify optimum leadership behavior. And like the candy mint, these Leadership Mints are easily spooned, quickly digested and immediately invigorating.